I am a DC-area Ph.D. economist who likes to study the labor market from a more granular, intersectional perspective, and I also know quite a bit about fiscal policy and how to use it to be most beneficial to the strength and vibrancy of our economy–which means including and involving and supporting and encouraging all of our society, everyone. I’ve already had a 30+ year career and raised four children, all of them now impressive yet happy adults. I started this blog in 2009 when they were all still school kids, stopped it in 2013 when I took a job at the Pew Charitable Trusts, and didn’t restart it for another 6 years. All that is available here is in the recent reincarnation, not its past life. People who see the title of this blog probably assume I still have little kids, but oh well. I don’t write much about being the mom of little kids, but I understand what those moms are going through, as I was once one of them myself. UPDATE: I also recently became a *grand*mother of a precious granddaughter, Beatrice, born in October 2023.
For a year in the height of the pandemic (summer 2020 – summer 2021) I was unemployed and waiting for that perfect full-time job for me. I was fortunate that I hadn’t found it yet when I was given the opportunity to become the policy director for the House Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth.
The Select Committee closed up shop at the end of the 117th Congress (end of 2022), after the staff had written, and the committee approved, our final committee report. The report is the culmination of a year and a half of committee hearings (both in DC and across the country), interviews, reading, listening, and contemplation–about what are the biggest real-life obstacles to achieving the American Dream, and how public policies and business practices could be improved to lower barriers and “level the playing field” in the market economy.
In July 2023 I began a new job as the Director of a brand-new office within the U.S. Treasury Department called the Equity Hub, which is a permanent policy office responsible for ensuring Treasury’s public-facing policies, programs, and practices benefit all Americans. I have spent my first half year on the job getting to know the offices and people within, across, and alongside Treasury, to determine how my new office can collaborate with them to achieve maximum impact and effectiveness. I’m also just starting to add colleagues to my Equity Hub team!
You can reach me by sending a private message tweet at @EconomistMom with your own contact info. Please follow me there if you haven’t already.
I am also on LinkedIn here.
Thanks for reading! –Diane Lim, January 2024